Welcome to 10 Questions, where the Service95 Book Club provides you with everything you need to start your own discussion about Dua’s Monthly Read. Whether you read alone, with a book club or a group of friends, these questions will help you peel back the layers of Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders, Dua’s Monthly Read for October.
1. Lincoln in the Bardo isn’t like any other novel. What was your experience reading a story in this form, and how would you describe it?
2. Lincoln in the Bardo could be called a choral history of America. What do these voices say about race, class, sexuality, gender, and parenthood at that time and now?
3. Children don’t linger in the bardo. What makes Willie stay?
4. What is the significance of Vollman’s permanent erection and Bevins’ extra eyes and hands?
5. The ghosts use all kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid acknowledging they are dead, such as talking about ‘sick boxes’ and ‘that previous place’. Why?
6. Vulgar Eddie Baron endlessly repeats his catchphrase ‘walk a fucking mile in my shoes’. What does this phrase mean in the context of this book?
7. The ghosts do everything they can to avoid the matterlightblooming phenomenon. What do you think happens next?
8. Roger Bevins says that ‘all were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be’. Vollman responds by saying ‘It was the nature of things’ and that we are all ‘suffering, limited beings’. How does this make you think about your life?
9. Towards the end of the novel, all the ghosts in the graveyard come together in a collective endeavour. How does this change them?
10. In the last scene of the book, the ghost of enslaved Thomas Havens experiences his first taste of freedom and rides towards the White House with President Lincoln. What is the significance of this scene?
